----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Summaries follow of two reports sent to me from the rare books librarian here at NYPL: Our friend James Perry/Gilbert Bland has visited at least one library in the Midwest--the University of Chicago, Dept of special collections reading room on Oct. 31, 1995. He used Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1584, which is now missing three previously unrecorded as missing maps: Cuba, Culiacana, Hispanola [map 7]; Florida [map 8] and Anglia [map 11]. He also used Robert Morden's Geography rectified...2d ed. London, 1688 and it is now missing 9 pages with maps. The University will be pressing charges, and has reported all this to the FBI in Baltimore. Secondly, last Friday's Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer newspaper reported he had not yet been charged, that the FBI and federal prosecutors "had still not decided Thursday whether to charge a Florida man awith stealing dozens of rare maps and illustrations from university libraries." ...Gilbert Bland is being questioned about the thefts, which occurred at seven [eight+] universities, including Duke and the Univeristy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. So, Happy New Year everyone... Alice Hudson Map Division, NYPL